[Winning]

I do feel that reparations for direct beneficiaries makes sense.

Could you imagine the difficulty it would be to try to figure out who are the current descendants of slaves from over 150 years ago. Then on top of that, what about all the people that died during slavery and have no living hiers in America? If an African family could prove that they had heirs that were actually taken from Africa for the USA Slavery system, could claims be made to pay reparations to African families?

The first Africans enslaved within the continental United States arrived in 1619 (estimated). Slavery was suppose to end in 1865. That 246 years! According to some records, millions of slaves were transported to America. Some of those people died, some of them had kids, then there kids had kids, and there kids kids had kids, and all of them were slaves.. Think about the power of compound interest but apply that to slaves! There has to be entire lineages of families that were born and died in slavery and have no direct descendants today.

For Context.
The Holocaust was between 1941 and 1945, 5 years.
The Japanese American internment camps were from 1942 to 1945, 4 years.
America Chattel Slavery from 1619 to 1865, 246 Years.
How long slaves have been free in America, 1865 - 2020, 155 Years.

Those numbers are really eye opening.. Black American as a group were slaves longer than they have been free in America.

Also those numbers show that the current senior citizen Black Americans should be able to trace their heirs back to slavery in only 3 or 4 generations. But the fact that no records were really kept, most older black American have a hard time going back 3 to 4 generations with clarity.

after taking courses in college called "The Third World," it seems that economic slavery might be worse than real slavery!

“History is written by the victors.”
Clearly we have to look at what is taught in school sideways... I have never even heard of this Black Wall Street thing in school. I remember a whole lot more regarding the holocaust being discussed in school. Also school did not paint a clear enough picture of how long slavery lasted, nor did school spend enough time talking about exactly what happened to the Native Americans.

There are two sides to each story and the BLM movement seems to focus on the victim side a lot.

I'm sure the answer could swing either way and proofs could be brought on both sides. One thing we should examine are the motives of those who are demanding. Another question is to figure out if reparations of any sort of going to swing the pendulum too far, or if the economic harm for making things "fair" is worth it? Being right is important, but it has to be done in the context of being smart as well.

With all this new awareness I am interested to see what comes out of all this. Put all the chips on the table, and see what comes.. I just learned that no US President or Congress has ever even issued an official apology for the America's role in slavery. But today Truist/BB&T the sixth-largest commercial bank in the United States, apologized for and denounced its predecessor banks’ roles in slavery in a letter sent employees today.

Using the historical numbers of what the USA has paid in other instances of approved reparations. If you attempt to do a back of the napkin assessment of what would be owed to the descendant of Slaves and the unfair treatment that the Jim Crow laws put in place, the number is mind boggling!

For Context...
Here is some of the most expensive court judgments in America...

Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement
The four largest tobacco companies – Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard -- reached terms in 1998 with 46 states, five territories and Washington, D.C., in a sweeping lawsuit. It required the companies pay those plaintiffs $10 billion annually for the indefinite future. The original four companies agreed to pay out at least $206 billion over the agreement’s first 25 years.

BP $18.7 billion
BP will pay $18.7 billion to Louisiana, four other states, and the federal government to settle civil lawsuits tied to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 and triggered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

What would you think the Tobacco and Cotton companies would owe the hiers of slaves?

One thing we should certainly do is cancel Columbus Day. That's really like having a Hitler Day.

So I guess you could correlate this as to why there is a calling to remove all the confederate statues, renaming parks, highways, schools, etc...

Could you imagine have Hitler statutes, or various top officers in the Nazi party, having parks, roads, schools, or monuments built to honor their history?